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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29498004">Far From Home</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyOfHell/pseuds/LadyOfHell'>LadyOfHell</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Original Statements [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Attempt at horror, Gen, Horror, Original Statement (The Magnus Archives), School Trip, Season/Series 03, Statement Fic (The Magnus Archives)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 01:07:16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,879</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29498004</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyOfHell/pseuds/LadyOfHell</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Statement of Amelia Vale, regarding a school trip in 2004 and an encounter with someone presumed to be an avatar of the Dark.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Original Statements [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2166756</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Far From Home</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Okay guys, I wrote another one. Honestly, this is fun and I'm simultaneously practicing my english and my horror writing skills :D<br/>Set in Season 3 this time, because Jon knows about avatars and fear entities.<br/>Like the summary states, its about the Dark this time. Strangly, its quite difficult to make the Dark creepy and I don't think I managed to pull it off very well.<br/>I like it, but I like my other fic better.<br/>Well, enough of that. English is still not my first language, sorry for grammatical errors.<br/>Have fun!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The tape recorder clicks on. "Statement of Amelia Vale", the Archivist begins to read. "regarding a school trip she participated in 2006. Original statement given 2nd October 2014. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London. Statement begins.<br/>
I was not a brave child. There were many things I was afraid of, but most of them weren't common fears. I liked spiders, for example. I've always thought they were cute, even the bigger ones. I also wasn't scared of ghosts. That may be my dad's fault, because he let me watch horror movies with him, but honestly, most of them bored me even when I was young. Of course, I jumped at every jump-scare, but that wasn't real fear, I was simply startled. The story itself didn't interest me much, because I had found the concept of ghosts and demons fascinating and the movies almost never explored it in an interesting way. I certainly never lost sleep over it.<br/>
This, of course, was very impressing in the eyes of my classmates, at least in elementary school. After that, everyone tried to be cool by watching Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the Thirteenth or something. Hearing them brag about it while I had watched these movies like five years earlier then them was quite funny to me, but that's beside the point.<br/>
Like I said, I wasn't brave. My fears varied over time and most of them I didn't keep very long, but they were kind of intense. For example, there was this weird period where I was sure there were snakes in my home. Hiding under the bed or my blankets or something. I can't remember where this stupid thought came from, because we lived in a town and I hadn't seen a living snake in my entire life – except for the zoo, of course – but I double checked my bed every night. Just in case.<br/>
Another time, there had been a fire in a apartment complex in my hometown. I don't remember the cause of it, it had happend in December, so maybe a burning christmas tree or something. For the following weeks, I had been convinced that our house would burn down too, and that it would happen at night and my parents and I would just burn. I lost a lot of sleep because of this.<br/>
Almost the same thing happened when I had watched the news and heared about a family that had died of carbon monoxide poisoning.<br/>
These were only temporary fears. All these things freaked me out for a few days or weeks, but I completely forgot about them after that. There are only three fears that stayed with me my entire life.<br/>
The first is the fear of death. My own death, to be precise. Maybe the things I mentioned earlier were just a result of that fear, I don't know. The second one is the fear of being left. Left behind, left alone, especially left by my parents. This has a reason, to be honest, but I won't discuss this here. It's not relevant to my case, don't worry.<br/>
The last fear is the darkness. I know what you think. This is a very common fear, nothing out of the ordinary. But I stand by the statement I made at the beginning, my fears aren't that common. Or maybe they are, I don't know, but most of my friends are afraid of ghosts or spiders or wasps or heights. And my fear of the dark is different from what you might expect from it. I'm not afraid of what lurks in the shadows, I'm afraid of the darkness itself.<br/>
I had never liked it, but usually, nights were alright. As long as there is any source of light, even if it was just the light of the moon, I was fine. What scared me was pitch black darkness, like alleyways without streetlamps at night. When you can't see what's right in front of your eyes and lose any sense of direction. It makes me feel like I'm suffocating.<br/>
I hope you understand the nature of my fear now. This isn't about something that's waiting in the shadows to hurt me. I'm scared of losing myself in the void.<br/>
This fear was easy enough to avoid though. I mean, how often do you find yourself in a place without any source of light? So I didn't care much about it, because it didn't affect my life at all, especially compared to my other fears.<br/>
I had an awesome bedroom in my parents apartment. It wasn't the biggest room, but the window was facing the road and there was a streetlamp, right in front of the window, lighting up the whole room at night. I'm sure a lot of people would hate this room but I wouldn't want to give it away. The light of the streetlamp was bright enough for me to see the outlines of my furnature, what was usually enough to calm me down. And honestly, I also liked to hear the occasional car passing by. It reminded me, that I wasn't alone in the night. That the void hadn't swallowed me yet.<br/>
The incident I want to talk about occured in late September 2006. I had to go on some school trip I really wasn't looking forward to. I had never had the best relationship with my classmates, except for one girl I'd called my best friend and maybe one or two others that at least talk to me. The fact that our destination was a five hour drive away from home only made matters worse. I know, when you have no car and no cellphone it doesn't really matter if you're in the next town or at the other end of the country, but I felt safer when I was closer to home. Long story short, I had to go on a school trip and I was scared.<br/>
The bus drive was excruciating. I sat with my best friend, of course, but even we couldn't talk for five hours straight, I couldn't sleep in the middle of the day and the bus had no radio, what made the whole affair extremely boring. I stared out of the window. There was nothing special to see, but I had absolutely nothing better to do until we finally arrived at the inn.<br/>
I remember every detail about the woman who showed us our rooms. She was tall and painfully thin and her fingers were long and seemed to be only skin and bones. Her hair was long and black and her eyes were black too, so dark that you couldn't tell where the iris ended and the pupil started. She wore an old-fashioned dress, with a wide petticoat and silver flower patterns on the black fabric. This woman was a speck of darkness in the otherwise bright inn and that fact was unsettling, at least for me.<br/>
We were four kids per room and I shared one with my best friend and the before mentioned other two girls that talked to me sometimes. The woman showed us which room was ours and her pitch black gaze lingered on me for just a second to long and I felt shivers down my spine. I hurried inside and didn't look at her again.<br/>
Our teacher made it a point to introduce her to us at dinner that day. Apparently she was the owner of the inn and I still remember her name clear as day. Madeleine Frye. It struck me as odd that a woman like her, who radiated pure darkness, would own such a bright and colourful inn and would call it "Sunflower's" of all things. I know you shouldn't judge people by their appearance, but I couldn't help it.<br/>
The lobby had a payphone and I spent quite some time there, talking to my parents. This is why I was the last one to return to our room. The sun had already set and I was wandering through the hallways, when I noticed how the lights were unusually dim. It was still light of course, so it didn't trigger my fear, but it was a little unsettling.<br/>
I started to walk faster, my room was only down the hallway, when I noticed a black corner. Like... completely dark. It didn't make any sense, because at least a little bit of light should have reached back there, but even the nearest lightbulb didn't do anything. It felt like an endless abyss, devouring any light that might have the audacity to touch it and it moved, slowly like tar. Its thick tentacles crawled over the carpet, swallowing the light like it was feeding from it and I found myself unable to look away, while the lightbulbs, one after another, started to flicker and eventually went out.<br/>
The impossible shadow had almost reached me when I finally managed to stumble a few steps backwards. Whatever that was, I didn't want it to touch me, so I turned around, ready to run, when I stood face to face with Madeleine Frye.<br/>
"Aren't you supposed to be in your room?", she had asked.<br/>
I ignored her question entirely, pointed behind me and demanded to know what that was.<br/>
"A hallway", she answered with a smile and when I turned around again, the darkness was gone.<br/>
I somehow managed not to scream or have a mental breakdown about the hallucination I had apparently suffered. Still, I didn't want to talk to her for one more second. Her eyes reminded me of the darkness in the hallway and I couldn't bear that piercing gaze anymore. I hurried around her, down the hallway and back into my room and she didn't even try to stop me. At this point I just wanted to go home.<br/>
I asked my roommates to leave the curtains open, but they refused. Both stated that they wouldn't be able to sleep when the streetlights pierced through the window and after what happend earlier, I found myself on the verge of panic. My best friend noticed that, of course. I remember exactly how she sat down on the edge of my bed and smiled at me. "Look", she said, stood up and walked over to the wall. "The lightswitch is right there. Two steps away."<br/>
For a moment I considered to tell her what had happend in the hallway, but even in my head it just sounded stupid, so I just smiled wryly and repeated "Two steps away." Honestly, it was reassuring to know that I could simply turn the lights on whenever I needed.<br/>
Falling asleep wasn't the problem, even after all that had happend. But maybe I had had a nightmare or maybe there hadn't been any reason at all for me to wake up in the middle of the night. I opened my eyes and was absolutely terrified when I found myself unable to see. Pitch black darkness, wether my eyes were open or closed. It took me a few seconds until I calmed down enough to remember what my best friend had said. The lightswitch was two steps away.<br/>
I pushed my blanket away, got out of the bed and made two steps straight forward. I streched my hand out, preparing to touch the wall, but there seemed to be nothing in front of me. I thought that maybe I didn't step far enough. Another step. Still no wall. Did I walk in the wrong direction? I didn't know, everything around me was cast in darkness. I turned around, or at least I assumed I had turned, because I had no way of telling in which direction I had faced before. I wanted to go back to my bed, at least. Hiding under my blanket, squeezing my eyes shut and pretending I wasn't lost in terrible darkness.<br/>
I took a step. And another. And one more and if this place had made any sense I would have reached the bed by now, but there was absolutely nothing. One more step. Still nothing. Wasn't I walking in the right direction? I was afraid to turn around again.<br/>
The small part of my mind that still seemed to work told me to just keep walking. This was a small room, sooner or later I had to reach a wall and regain my sense of direction. Another step. The floor was cool beneath my feet. I could have sworn it had been a carpet before.<br/>
I was walking and walking and walking impossibly far and yet I reached nothing. I started to feel dizzy, my head was spinning like crazy. Maybe I was walking in circles, trembling and shivering. The silence was breathtaking and I tried to scream, yet no sound would leave my throat. Did I change directions? I couldn't remember. Maybe I was walking upwards at this point, I couldn't tell. I don't think there was a floor anymore. I was walking on plain shadows.<br/>
After a while, and it is entirely impossible to tell how much time had passed, I fell to my knees. The darkness, that had encased me completely, shifted and wrapped itself around my body. It was cold enough to burn my skin. I tried to brush it off, but I couldn't touch what wasn't really there. I opened my mouth to scream again, but shadows flooded my lungs like thick black tar and suffocated my last desperate cry for help.<br/>
It felt like floating. I didn't know what was up and down anymore, my body was burning from the cold and the screaming silence was piercing my ears and the darkness shifted and turned in its impossible endlessness. My blinded eyes stared into the abyss and I swear that it stared back, gazing right through me with its pitch black eyes and I clutched my throat and tried to breath, but shadows flowed out of my mouth and down my body and it burnt like acid on an open wound. Time was dead and reality was no more and I shut my eyes, but the sight didn't change. I knew there was no more future and maybe not even a past. Only the void, that would finally devour me. Over and over again.<br/>
I don't know how long it took until I eventually lost consciousness. I woke up the next morning on the floor besides my bed and luckily I looked ill enough to convince my teachers to send me home. I wouldn't have spent another night there. If my parents wouldn't have come to take me home, I would have stayed awake until our departure.<br/>
I don't know if some classmates experienced similar things, but if they did, they certainly didn't tell me about it. Maybe they did and just thought it had been a nightmare. Maybe it really had been a nightmare. That's certainly what everyone would say if I told them about my experience. It doesn't matter though.<br/>
All that matters was how Madeleine Frye had looked at me when I was sitting in the lobby, waiting for my parents to arrive. And how she smiled when she asked me if I've had a good night.<br/>
I can't tell you how happy I was when I returned to my home. To my small bedroom, the streetlamp in front of the window and the occasional cars, that reminded me that I was not alone.<br/>
But I still slept with the lights on for a while. Just in case.<br/>
Statement ends.<br/>
Well, the verifiable details Miss Vale recounted were correct. The Saint Katrina's Elementary School went on a trip to south England in September 2006 and they did stay at a local inn called "Sunflower's", which commonly accomodated school classes. It is also correct that the name of the "Sunflower's" owner is Madeleine Frye.<br/>
What makes no sense though is the fact that I could find a few pictures of Miss Frye and the opening of the inn, yet the woman in the pictures looks nothing like what Miss Vale had described. Miss Frye was a middle-aged blonde woman, short and plump and, as far as I could tell, with light eyes. Additionally, it seems like Miss Frye passed away in 2004, after battling lung cancer for several years.<br/>
I have to assume that the Madeleine Frye Miss Vale had met in the inn was an avatar of the Dark, who had used the inn to find victims for her patron. My attempts to find her were unsuccessful, unfortunately, because the "Sunflower's" was closed in 2011, after several guests had suffered some sort of shock and one had even died from heart failure as a direct result. I wasn't able to locate Miss Frye or even find out if she's still alive today, but I certainly hope her cruel work has come to an end. One way or another.<br/>
Miss Vale is alive and well today, but she refused my request for a follow-up interview. According to her, the nightmares are bad enough and she doesn't want to think about this trauma more than absolutely necessary.<br/>
It's nice to hear that, even though she suffers from nightmares, she managed to escape the grasp of the Dark, apparently for good.<br/>
End recording."</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Did y'all like Madeleine? I fear she acts more like a Spiral avatar than a Dark one.<br/>The "Wtf is this" - "A hallway" Conversation just feels like something Michael Distortion would say. But I just liked it to much to change it.<br/>Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it :)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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